Studio Spotlight: Oh Joy! Studio

These beautiful candle jar labels for Urban Outfitters were designed in collaboration with Joya Candle by Joy Deangdeelert Cho of Oh Joy! Studios. She specializes in pattern and product design. You may have heard of Oh Joy! before from the popular Oh Joy! blog, which features great style and design inspiration. Joy's great taste is apparent in her blog and in her studio work, too. She has also recently launched a line of stationery products featuring her elegant pattern work called Nantaka Joy.

Student Spotlight: Emily Kowzan

Emily Kowzan designed some really nice packaging while studying at SVA. She studied identity and packaging design under instruction of Louise Fili, a world-famous and award winning identity and packaging designer. What a great privilege! You can definitely see Louise's influence in Emily's work. I really like the Lasera wine above, and the twist-wrapped sweets below.

But, the attractive glass jars and bottles are what really set Alili's packaging apart. The brand feels upscale and unique due to the beautiful jar and bottle forms, requiring little emphasis from the labels. In my experience with gourmet packaging design and development, sourcing unique specialty food-grade glass jars can be quite a challenge.

The attention Alili has placed on packaging shape/structure has paid off handsomely for the brand, enabling them to gain plenty of media attention and shelf space in a relatively short time (the company officially launched July of 2007).

I've had the pleasure of knowing the talented and friendly folk at Smith Design. Their work for national brands is class-defining and truly sets the standard for design excellence in consumer branded products.

UPDATE:

In response to some comments on this post, I'm adding some facts and background to clarify.

Smith Design has been creating and updating brand identities for long-established brands for over 30 years. Their work has impacted household names like Popsicle, Skippy's peanut butter and Breyer's ice cream. Keeping these identities fresh and relevant is not a simple design challenge. Not too many studios in the US are capable of the strategic and design skills required to satisfy the needs of brands that have been around for decades, with enormous brand equity behind their 'looks'.

From my personal experience, in many cases designing for national brands is much more difficult than small niche brands. There are multiple design considerations to consider when designing for a long-standing brand with limited flexibility. These brands require smaller incremental changes over longer periods of time, versus the cool, new brand that can afford to do something cutting-edge to make an impact.

In spite of this, Smith Design still manages to push the envelope in a change-resistant climate, encouraging their clients to take bolder design steps in the design of their branding and packaging.

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Studio Spotlight: Dizen

Dizen in a design firm in Argentina that specializes in packaging for wine and spirits. Their restrained, elegant approach is apparent in most of their designs. Although their work isn't edgy, it's well done and very appropriate for the wine industry. They've also done some body care products, which I thought were tastefully done, too.